Everything in proper order

 

“After entering a boat, Jesus made the crossing, and came into his own town.  And there, people brought to him a paralytic lying on a stretcher. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Courage, child, your sins are forgiven.’” (Matthew 9:1–8)

I love this story.  These people bring Jesus a man who can't move.  In their faith, they’re sure that Jesus will know what to do.  Jesus is touched by their faith.  He tells the man to have courage and He tells him his sins are forgiven. 

One of the most important parts of this passage is that Jesus didn’t simply say “Yes” to the physical healing of the paralytic and leave it at that.  Instead, His response to the paralytic was to first forgive his sins.  I think that there’s an important lesson to be learned from this which can help us know how best to pray.

Oftentimes when we pray, we pray for this or that favor from our Lord.  We pray for what we want Jesus to grant us.  But the story of the paralytic shows us that what Jesus wants for us is different.  First, He wants to grant us forgiveness for our sins.  This is His priority, and it should also be ours.  Once the forgiveness of sins takes place with this paralytic, Jesus also heals, as proof of His power to forgive sins.  This story should help us to order our priorities in prayer according to Jesus’ priorities.  If we make sorrow for sin our first priority, we can be certain that Jesus will answer us.  From there, Jesus knows all of our needs.  We can present them to Him but only when we’re reconciled within our own heart with Him.

That’s why it’s important to make a daily examination of our sins.  This must become the first and most important part of our daily prayer.  Though many people don’t like to look at sin, it’s much easier to do when the focus is not so much the sin as it is a focus upon the mercy of forgiveness and spiritual healing we need.  The more aware we become of our daily sin, the more mercy we’ll receive.  And the more mercy for the forgiveness of our sins we receive, the more our Lord will be able to bless us abundantly in other ways.  We should always start with the mercy of our Lord and our own need for that mercy every day, and all else will be taken care of by our Lord.